EDITORIAL: Fired and fed up, finally

The Silver Consolidated Schools Board of Education has been the hot ticket in public meetings for some time now. Every month, a crowd of current and former teachers, reporters, meeting junkies, union reps and political activists does a more than fair job of filling the small boardroom in Silver’s administration building on Swan Street.

The interest stems from the seemingly constant upheaval that the school system has endured over the past few years. Labor allegations, a revolving door of board appointments and a general sense that something’s just wrong has sparked the interest of those who are inclined to be involved. Although the impact in terms of actual change has been limited, it’s nice to see an audience at these public meetings to at least send the message that someone is watching — that someone cares what’s going on there.

What’s been lacking is much sense of community outrage outside the circle of people who’ve already figured out that they have a stake here. Despite good attendence, there haven’t been a lot of “ordinary” parents or students turn out to turn up the heat on the board to make changes. But that changed Tuesday night.

We’ve lost top- quality principals, excellent teachers and dedicated staff to the chaos that Silver Schools has become — our education reporter has a literal stack of resignations and firings from the Streib era. But what does it take to really get people fired up? Apparently getting rid of a popular coach is the last straw.

Don’t get us wrong — we’re fans of Coach Gutierrez, too. We just wish the firing of some of the many other good educators had created an equal furor.